The Story of Prog Metal in 10 Albums + 'FAKE' GUITARISTS vs THE 'EXPERTS'

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I am a drummer, producer and educator. I talk about Jazz, Prog and Fusion and the cultural context in which music has been, and is made. And sometimes, if you are lucky, I go off on one...

[@andyshelton4889]

Prog metal begins accidentally with King Crimson’s “Red”.😀❤️🎼

[@djshowtrial4565]

That’s a killer album! Robert Fripp has that kind of machine logic in his writing but with an arty edge

[@sinenkaari5477]

If Rick Beato is Soap Opera, Andy Edwards is Reality TV

[@deansusec8745]

I respect what Rick is doing, but for me the format and vibe Andy does is great. ITs like youre sitting with a mate in a pub and chatting

[@CasperLCat]

Beato is American PBS, and Andy is the late-night Monty Python’s Flying Circus broadcasts on PBS, that intro’d them to the US in the 1970s.

[@ambientideas1]

‘Mistakes and roughness’ are the human element in music, and sadly a lot of humanity in music is being discouraged and lost. When I listen to my favourite classic rock guitarists like Hendrix, Page, Howe, et al, the ‘mistakes’ sometimes outnumber the technical perfections, which makes it human, personal and unmistakably glorious. Rant on, brother!

[@neokio.f]

I do not see mistakes to put blame on, mistakes are points of possible learning. IMO in studio and production the routines and digital tools have changed standards. Thats why life performanes show the real handcraft and interactions on stage, all humans can witness the real character of the band. Showbiz or artistry, this moments and connections make it a direct experienced ceremony in all aspects, magic heart to heart. Show biz shows with midi lines like in a dance club or head banging has not this magic, cause its taking my perception away from what is really live on stage, then the momentum is only selfpleasure

[@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music]

Why call it rock if it doesn't have spontaneity?

[@neokio.f]

@@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music Where does spontanity in Rock music is a must? To me this is part of session jams or free solos, it can happen anytime sure. We all do have good and not so good moments in life, it can add spice to a song. But it's not mandatory to ROCK music.

[@grimtraveller7923]

@@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music "Why call it rock if it doesn't have spontaneity?" Because it may well be rock. Tons of well crafted "rock music" doesn't have spontanaiety - that's why it's well-crafted !

[@robertadamgilmour3375]

Glad you mentioned Control And Resistance, it's wonderful. Your talk of insecure virtuosos has made the connection in my head with incredibly gorgeous people who edit their selfies and end up looking like some lifeless computer creation. This problem exists in digital visual art too.

[@NicholasNorway]

Ron jarzombek is a monster!

[@sciwiz57]

I guess this video was made before Mike Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater - can’t wait to hear new material!

[@katskillz]

You skipped over King's X. Clearly, they were heavily progressive but also deeply rooted in the heavy blues rock, in that sense the purest heirs of early Rush, Zep, Sabbath and Deep Purple. But you also hear Prince, Yes and the Beatles in what they did.

[@hustler3of4culture3]

Agree

[@Patrick-sh9tt]

Amazing band, completely agree

[@Patrick-sh9tt]

Rush to Queensryche, Fates Warning, Watchtower and yes Rust in Peace..you’re hitting all the right buttons here, amazing stuff. These bands then massively influence the creator of Death metal Chuck Schuldiner and things spawn off into technical death metal, the mighty Cynic, Atheist etc etc etc. Loads of the black metal heads and the likes of Opeth (not a massive fan either) started experimenting and talking prog then in the 00’s and there was a huge scramble to see what they were talking about. Watchtower were a massive influence on Pantera who were great friends of the godly King’s X who are really the bridge between Rush/Sabbath and the grunge bands.

[@RogueReplicant]

Agreed. It's difficult for me to disagree with his list. I might have switched out Megadeth for Triumph or Kansas but otherwise great list 👍

[@cbolt4492]

Your videos are superb! I'd love to to come to one of your gigs or talks 😎

[@katskillz]

I remember Images and Words really really impressing me at the time. But then I got my hands on Focus by Cynic which to my ears though not quite as tight as DT, they were somehow even more ambitious, the conceptual focus and these new forms of jazz phrasing within metal, genre blending etc. I guess I started to ignore Dream Theater after Kevin Moore left. I saw both Cynic and Dream Theater live around the same time period and I was so much more impacted by Cynic's performance, but at the same time they got a lot more pushback from the audience because they were not "brutal" enough in that death metal context. In fact some shouted "Queensryche" at them as an insult.

[@SuperStrik9]

Cynic - Focus is a tremendous album. Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert were great on Death - Human as well. My favourite Death album.

[@jimmycampbell78]

The usual meatheads.

[@RocknJazzer]

I think another problem many people had with them was the vocoder vocals, which did not help.

[@iansmith8783]

I still love DT but i agree, Awake is still the best album, i don't know if it was Kevin Moore that made the difference, but that album has an edge to it that nothing they've done since has had

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

That was great ! You are in a position to see these things from the inside and the outside. I appreciate all this knowledge being shared. Thanks Andy

[@Nephilim-81]

Love this discussion. Thank you, Andy.

[@nicholaspetergagg7769]

Have you heard the band MAGAZINE and their follow up to the real life album SECONDHAND DAYLIGHT 1979;👍 it is postpunk meets prog and a really good album.The musicianship and arrangements are exceptional ,I think you may be impressed if you give it a listen

[@stevesmith3990]

Good point, I had their first album 'Real Life' - prog with a punk attitude.

[@thekeywitness]

Love Magazine

[@purpletemple1]

The new A7X is an absolute masterpiece. Saw them Live 2 days ago and they were awesome. Such an inspiration, I hope they'll eventually get the credit they deserve for being so creative. Cheers.

[@AndDeathForAll82]

That record straight up FLOORED me!

[@RichardSmith-ot3zk]

I was never a metal guy, but I enjoyed Mastodon's Blood Mountain when it came out. Recently I listened to Leviathan and was a bit obsessed with it. As a concept, it's an inspired choice because Moby Dick is pretty metal, and then the heavy metal screaming is something you'd hear on the ship. A lot of 6/8 time for the boat rocking theme but with odd time signature that serve the purpose of adding some instability. The stand out in that band is drummer Brann Dailor. Where some of the highly techincal drummers leave me cold, he's got a lighter, in the pocket approach even on virtuoso tracks like Capillarian Crest. It's no surprise that he cites Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and Billy Cobham as influences.

[@Truthinshredding1]

Great job on linking these things up. I too like some dirt performing, listen to Rising Force, you can hear fingers sliding on strings, and YJM flipping the switch to select the pickups. I always think you know a band when you see them live. It's why you need to go see bands live.

[@johannhauffman323]

thank you so much for holding the gates open and hopefully opening minds and ears, and Defending the musicians for doing what is necessary to survive the industry. I also hope one day we live in a world where musicians can be successful and play live without a backing track. Where they can push back against the corporate music industry world. Where we can make an honest living playing honest music. I think what you do is important. I hope your community grows. Thanks for what you do Andy !

[@drummusicinc4027]

Great video Really enjoyed it. Love your rants. Always on point. Find myself nodding my head in agreement 👍

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@davewaterford281]

This is the best video I’ve seen. Thank you for bringing up the subject of the industry and market forces. A very sad state of affairs for the whole industry to be in. A great Top Ten list of albums, I am a massive fan of Opeth, glad you mentioned them. Brilliant live as well.

[@cbolt4492]

I'm a big fan of your views on music even though I'm not that keen on a lot of the prog stuff. Please keep going 😎

[@rakeshadhin]

Great choice of albums! Just like to draw your attention to Mekong Delta, which are a phenomenal prog (thrash) metal band from Germany. A good place to start is their 1990 album "Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows)".

[@TractorCountdown]

Surely King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard cut through all that digital perfectionism. Be interesting know what you think of them, Andy. The Avenged Seven album has really grown on me, doing whatever the hell they feel like. Cheers, Ian

[@DrakusRecords]

King Gizzard is more of a jam band imo, and jam bands usually don't go the digital perfection route. Authenticity of the performance is tantamount in jam bands moreso than in prog bands I think. There is some crossover, between prog and jam bands of course. For example Phish was more of a prog band in the early days before pro-tools even existed and their albums always sounded super precise. But that was because they were a super-tight band who practiced religiously and they could replicate it live (and still can). But they're old school. I'm not sure if King Gizzard is as authentic, but I get the feeling they follow that same jam band tradition of valuing authenticity over digital perfection. I'm curious to hear his thoughts too on both KG and Phish.

[@TractorCountdown]

@@DrakusRecords I agree that King Gizzard are more a jam band. I was really thinking of their latest album. The lead track, 'Motor Spirit', sets up the album which is prog-metal. I'll have a listen to Phish - I've heard of them.

[@DrakusRecords]

​@@TractorCountdown Phish is one of my favorite bands. If you like prog you will probably like their early stuff, but it's more prog-jazz than prog-metal. I would say they are much closer to Genesis, Yes or Zappa than Rush, Opeth or Dream Theater. I recommend the albums Junta, Lawn Boy, A Picture of Nectar and Rift as well as the song Guyute from "Story of the Ghost".

[@TractorCountdown]

@@DrakusRecords Great, thank you! I'll look forward to listening to those.

[@T1fixFelix]

You're the man Andy! Keep poking the nest😅

[@adnilrummut105]

animals as leaders played live amazing and sounded fantastic.

[@arnaudb.7669]

PRICELESS video.

[@grimtraveller7923]

“So it’s interesting that these bands that are coming out post-punk in the late 70s are trying to be heavier than the heavy metal bands that went before, to the point where we stopped calling bands like Deep Purple and AC/DC heavy metal...when I was a kid they were still called heavy metal…… After thrash metal, everything that went before it is not going to be classed as heavy metal - it’s all got a lot heavier” For me, this encapsulates the tendency in modern man to revise history in their own chosen image, and throw out what existed before. Now, without a doubt, in actual world history, much of it has needed revising because it has often been cast in the image of the victor and we can see that this has often been so far from the truth. The various accounts of history may contain elements of truth, partial truth...but has rarely been the complete thing. And since the dawn of the internet and the freedom granted to the common person to express their opinion, we’ve seen the same thing happen as regards heavy metal rock. Many commentators will endlessly push out that “the genre” “began” with Black Sabbath and anything that was heavy before it, at best will be referred to as “proto-metal” - without the slightest regard as to the meaning of “proto,” or “hard rock,” without acknowledging that in the early 70s, the terms ‘hard rock’, ‘heavy metal rock’/’heavy rock’/heavy metal’ and sometimes, even ‘progressive rock’, could be and were often interchangeable. Because ‘heavy metal’ was often used by many influential critics as a pejorative, the artists playing the actual music would not refer to their music as heavy metal. But heavy metal is the term used during the 70s to describe the broad genre that hundreds of bands were pursuing in their music. Some were really heavy, some were middling, some were at the softer end - compared to those at the heavy end. Boston, for example, though heavy, weren’t as heavy as Black Sabbath, Budgie or Montrose. But they were a damn sight heavier than Diana Ross, David Bowie and the Bay City Rollers ! It really annoys me when heavy rock is not historically portrayed as a music that evolved and saying that “these bands that are coming out post-punk in the late 70s are trying to be heavier than the heavy metal bands that went before, to the point where we stopped calling bands like Deep Purple and AC/DC heavy metal...when I was a kid they were still called heavy metal……after thrash metal, everything that went before it is not going to be classed as heavy metal - it’s all got a lot heavier” is rather like saying that because in the last few years, we’ve had these huge and intense wildfires that are killing people across various parts of the world, we’re no longer going to regard the great fire of London as a fire, just a few flames that licked here and there. Or that because so many people died in world war 2 and the weaponry was more heavy duty and destructive, we’re no longer going to class the medieval wars as wars, just little local skirmishes. Yes, it sounds ridiculous -it’s meant to- but that is how the re-writing of heavy rock history sounds. Just because the music got heavier doesn’t de-heavy metalize what came before. That’s partly how evolution works. There were books and articles in the 1970s and 1981/2 that spoke of certain heavy metal artists.

[@TheFierceAndTheDead]

Great stuff mate X

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Shake the jar is a great song. Fine performance too

[@TheFierceAndTheDead]

@@Hartlor_Tayley awesome :) Thank you

[@johannhauffman323]

@@TheFierceAndTheDead I just checked out Shake the Jar too. It is outstanding. It is a song very well composed in my opinion. Well played. I have 2 modest tunes…. One is a long late night Jazzy thing. One is short and I think is better. I would love to know how they sound in your ears. If you have a spare 10 minutes….. it would help me learn and grow. Peace ! !!

[@TheFierceAndTheDead]

@@johannhauffman323 thank you very much

[@sheldoninst]

This is very easy… every single prog-metal band had members who grew up on the traditional prog AMD hard rock bands… but specifically, the prog metal sound was clearly pioneered by the following: King Crimson Jethro Tull Kansas Rush

[@fcamiola]

Opeth!

[@MudFlanagan]

Hope you're feeling better now after that rant!! :)

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

I'm just really annoyed there aren't more annoying things for me to get annoyed by. The lack of annoying things is very annoying

[@AndDeathForAll82]

‘…And Justice for All’ really deserves a mention. They were the first to fuse Thrash with Prog. Also, you nailed it with your analysis of ‘Life is But a Dream’. Nothing has ever sounded like that. It’s technical, the mix is absolutely unhinged, and the theme is dark and relevant. It’s a beautiful and unsettling record and is very misunderstood. It’s everything Prog should be, without sounding like any Prog Metal that has come before.

[@amasvodka]

Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve is probably the most important prog metal album of the ‘90s aside from Images and Words.

[@tallismaryward]

Well said Andy. As a non musician but artist I completely agree regarding the "practice" quote. Bands are not playing "written" music, eg Mozart, Beethoven etc. As a previous gig goer I didn't want to hear the lp. If I did I'd buy THAT! I wanted the mistakes, reason I like Zappa. All of his interpretations of his stuff WAS different and that should be the reason to see live bands. Backing tracks on stage does not interest me and even Madonna was criticised when she did it in the 90's.

[@yourdogsnews]

30:42 I used to have a programme on the old atari 8 bit that generated random music that sounds similar to that….

[@SuperStrik9]

Two of my favourite progressive metal bands are Atheist and Cynic. I highly recommend Atheist - Elements and Cynic - Focus as two great progressive metal albums.

[@ericmckayrq]

Anyone who wants to hear an excellent continuation the kind of thing Watchtower were doing on that album should check out Death's "Individual Thought Patterns" 1991. I'm not a fan of "death metal" and I don't consider this Death metal. These are absurdly talented musicians highly influenced by Watchtower and a fretless bass player doing some of the wildest bass playing ever in metal...Its like Jaco in a metal band. Fav prog metal album

[@styrmugnsell4560]

Great video and nice recommendations. Have you heard Ragnarök, Swedish band from 1970's? Try the song "Promenader" for example.

[@xaviercharreton1917]

You nailed it. You should Check out King Buffalo. It is true heavy progressive music with real playling.

[@bakeone4406]

The first Trettioariga Kriget (1974) album throws a big wrench in the generally accepted accounts of prog metal evolution. On repeated listens this one seems like it must have been made with the help of a time machine.

[@adnilrummut105]

1. cynic - focus 2. dream theater - awake 3. queensryche - operation: mindcrime 4. mastodon - crack the skye 5. meshuggah - koloss 6. opeth - blackwater park 7. tool - aenima 8. atheist - unquestionable presence 9. animal as leaders - weightless 19. the aristocrats - culture clash 11. mr. bungle - california

[@rakeshadhin]

Dances of Death (1990) by Mekong Delta is an amazing prog metal album! Check it out if you haven't already.

[@cerveshred]

Spiral Architect - A Sceptic Universe is my favorite prog metal album ever Rush and Gentle Giant are something special

[@franciscocanas5686]

That Avenged Sevenfold album seems to have come out of nowhere. Who could’ve thought such a band would produce Life is but Dream? Crazy.

[@jimmycampbell78]

I like their earlier albums- what they did would not have appealed to purist proggers but there was always a very interesting blend of metal influences and great melodic lines.

[@winstonsmith8240]

Roy Marchbank is fucking incredible. Remarkable technique, and the guy has soul to go with it. Nobody on earth plays like he does. He should be a star.

[@deathshredking]

I saw Pain of Salvation in concert a little over 20 years ago, and their performance was just about as close to note for note from the studio versions as you could get (no, they did not play to a backing track). Not that they’re known for their uber technicality or anything like that anyway…

[@TheJohnmb46]

Steve Harris and Janick Gers from Iron Maiden are massive Prog fans! In the case of Jan, don't say I said that cos he said he would kill me if I told anyone!

[@kimstrickland65]

In a previous video, you talked about some things you would not cover because you had little or no personal involvement with them - one of those things was European progressive rock. In that realm, Tangerine Dream was a German progressive band that seriously influenced progressive rock and progressive metal. Originally guitar centric, they quickly shifted to being synthesizer and sequencer centric in the early 70s, playing long instrumental tracks, somewhat reminiscent of Pink Floyd in their early Saucer Full of Secrets phase. Of course, at the time the synthesizers were analog and the sequencers were crude, but they quickly adopted more advanced things as they became available. The combination of synthesizers and sequencers leads to much of the tendencies of some of your rant about perfectionism in modern recorded music. Once sequenced, it is easy to trigger prerecorded parts of any prerecorded material that has been quantized. As for editing out mistakes, that has been commonplace since the tape machines in the late 1940s, and especially since the use of multitrack recorders in the mid 60s. Using a computer just makes it easier to do. You can do in your bedroom at much less cost what formerly required a professional audio engineer in a studio. This goes on even in classical music. For example, I have a solo classical guitar recording probably made in the late 70s of the Villa Lobos Etudes where in the middle of one of them the reverberation characteristics of the recording studio changes between phrases. This was probably recorded on analog, there is no audibly noticeable splice point, but careful listening can detect the change in the background reverb. Has this bothered me? Not really, in a way it is a bit amusing and reminds me that even this virtuoso was still human.

[@timhewtson6212]

I absolutely loved your final rant. Let's face it, you are a superb polemic ranter. Good on you. There was some research done in the 1980s/1990s on advertising copy, and the finding was that advertising copy that was grammatically incorrect sold significantly more product than that which was absolutely correct. Lesson = people love human fallibilty. But do they still? Was this just a hangover from a generation that wasn't skilled enough to be perfectionistic? There seems to be an obsession with perfectionism that first arose in the 80s. If you think of classical music, everything is now about perfectionism. The actual music is immutable - set in stone - so the only places to go are perfectionism and reinterpretation. That needn't be the case in modern music. After all, music is just made up - there isn't really a case to say that someone has played a song wrong. Yes, the original songwriter played it a certain way; but now you are playing it differently. A classic case: 'Hate' played by the Seven Inch Nails and reinterpreted by Johnny Cash. I have a prejudice: great instrumentalists can rarely write interesting music; great songwriters / composers are rarely listed as great instrumentalists. And the reason is that great songs are not deliberately written on keyboards or fretboards; they turn up in your sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning. Dammit! But the emphasis now is on instrumentalists over songwriters. Everything is about the circus act of playing live, whereas a great songwriter wants the best recorded version regardless of whether it can be played live or not. If it is going to be played live, it is going to have to be reworked, as you say, because the soundscape is going to be a bit of a mess live anyway. Obviously, music should not be jarring, unless you deliberately want to be jarring. My test of a great song is whether it puts me to sleep. If there is something 'wrong,' I'll start up in my chair. WTF? If it appears to be as intended, "Zzzzzzzz." All good. And, personally, I find music that is too aligned jarring, metronomic, ugly. 70s music was exciting - instrumentalists wanted to do exciting stuff, not perfect stuff. Now it is the other way around, and rock music is dead - or at least deadened.

[@antidote7]

Hey Andy, you might want to check out the Legend album titled "From The Fjords" from the early 1980's. Like to get your idea on where it sits with that new metal historically.

[@andyshelton4889]

Great band! Someone in the band was a fan of Colosseum Ii!😀❤️🎼

[@antidote7]

@@andyshelton4889 im going to ask Fred Melillo, the bassist, who is bassist for my current projects, about the influences.

[@_Helm_]

Well done on covering this historically. You have some blind spots that people from this scene actually could contribute filling in. You're missing a piece of development pre-'progressive metal' as a term While Fates did Awaken the Guardian this was a big inspiration to the american power metal and thrash metal scene. Awaken the guardian accounts for so much more than Perfect Symmetry does. Lots of techno-thrash predates 'progressive metal' proper, as well. Watchtower are more foundational than you make it seem, as foundational as Queensryche (who had next to them also, Heir Apparent) to what progressive metal became, and Watchtower were the titual 'abstract, complex techno-thrash' band. In Germany this caught on with a host of deliberations, Sieges Even, Deathrow, Mekong Delta, contemporaneous pre-1990 techno-thrash shifting into progressive metal proper. A proper treasure trove hidden in the now vestigial genre tag of 'techno-thrash' that cannot go unmentioned in the history of progressive metal. The big gap in your coverage is a band inspired by Fates Warning and Watchtower equally, called Psychotic Waltz. Their contribution to strange 1989 cannot be understated. There's also Confessor striking daringly in a doom plus Watchtower direction, a direction noone else ever took, there's hidden beauty like Mayfair, Xerxes, there's a lot of unsung heroes of the underground at that late 80s early 90s point. Progressive metal is historically best understood as a pre-Images and Words and post-Images and Words split, as after DT a lot of DT clones come up and do more of a neo-prog plus Pantera thing, which leads towards djent and other modern irrelevancies.

[@sinenkaari5477]

I'm drummer and I have a idea to do an album with electric drums but so that i won't use metronome. I wanna get those digital sounds from FL Studio but have them with my feel. I like music without metronome better. Songs using click feel like they hit you on the same spot everytime. It's boring. Some melodies need to have rubato in them and will sound too long or short in the middle or in some spot in metronomic time

[@damienfoyer]

Conception is an interesting band that is worth considering in this category. Of course, they never reached the amount of audiences as the top 10 artists.

[@TheJohnmb46]

Bring back jamming live and especially the legendary Welsh band Man who could almost jam for an entire gig without dropping a beat or a note!

[@HippoYnYGlaw]

The Influence of BUDGIE's early songwriting, Burke Shelley's bass lines and Tony Bourge's cough, licks, on Rush Iron Maiden Metallica & Megadeth is often overlooked, but thankfully not by the bands themselves. The Beatles and and Led Zeppelin in turn influenced Burke. All the post 83 heavy rock /nu metal bypassed my brain but 1994s Rage against the Machine taught me wot it was all about. Can't be bothered to hear the mu metal prog frankly. Rage! Against! It!

[@ricardoaraujo8741]

First prog metal album: Sabbath Blood Sabbath.

[@peterdunlop7885]

I saw Gojira live. Incredible players, great show. But if I’m honest it was too perfect live, no dirt, no grrrrr. I stood behind the sound guy, he could have launched a spaceship with the gear he had. You say that people want perfect, sorry but I want ooomph, passion..

[@johnneycrossey9016]

Seiges even in 1988 and watchtower inn1985

[@Musika1321]

Welcome insights on das industry of music and pointing to the biggest assholes in the biznezz. The rant meister slays!

[@nigelelliott4901]

A tremendous Edwardian rant. 😁 Voivod, love 'em, Opeth, love 'em. I'd have Meshuggah on any list of prog metal titans too. And the 1st Mars Volta album, though that was it for me. Didn't like their follow-up & lost interest.

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

Both those bands were on my list to discuss but i never quite got there

[@HazeAnderson]

Deloused In The Comatorium is a (flawed) MASTERPIECE! Some of my favorite drumming all around.

[@BenTevikMusic]

I’m a big fan of Haken and Pain of Salvation, I like a lot of Tesssract’s stuff, and Animals as Leaders really blew me away with their live performance. I understand the criticism of using quantized drums and uber-perfect parts with slick production, but bands haven’t really done live full band in-studio recordings since the 70s. I’d propose that your criticism boils down to just subjectively not liking this style as much as you like other prog. Modern prog metal is heavily influenced by Meshuggah and there’s a lot of that drier, more mechanical aesthetic. Of course “metal” can sound “metallic” lol. The use of backing tracks live isn’t a new thing either. Rush used all sorts of triggered samples to fill out their live sound. The fact that they triggered them vs a backing track running seems like a nit-picky difference. All of the bands I listed earlier are pulling off their parts very impressively live, backing tracks or not. I like your videos quite a lot, recently subscribed and really value your expertise. But I’m sorry you came across as really obnoxious towards the end of the video. As a musician who hasn’t signed a prog record deal, I felt I was being talked down to and mocked for possibly disagreeing with you. Unless you’re doing a trolly character thing, I just haven’t seen you do that before. I think of Haken as highly as I do Yes or Rush, and there’s no reason to disagree with that except for just not preferring the music subjectively. I don’t see some objective argument here. It felt like you were trying to say these bands are not as great as I think they are, but at the same time railing against people calling them fake 🤔 Sounds like you’re saying they are at least somewhat fake, right? I don’t buy the idea that mistakes = authenticity. I agree that full band performances in studio would be ideal, but c’mon that’s not a deal breaker. Ask a classical orchestral musician if imperfections are acceptable. I think these bands are approaching this the same way. Of course prog metal bands are trying to be impressive and wow the young musicians. You’re an old school fusion and prog fan; haven’t critics always gone after those genres with the same exact criticism?? Too flashy, no emotion, etc etc. I think modern prog has a sound/aesthetic that you don’t understand as much as other prog (there’s plenty I don’t vibe with either), and you’re approaching “pot calling the kettle black” territory with all other technical music you enjoy. All the best 🤘

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

Have a watch of this again. Primarily I am criticising those who criticise the fakers. I am explaining the market forces on bands to use computers to quantise and retrigger and re pitch everything. Bands should try and play as perfectly as they can. I was in the studio yesterday and I was focused on not making mistakes. Modern metal bands are on the whole fake. Everyone in the industry knows this. The fans don't like that being said. I'm trying to call this out. It will be difficult because no one involved wants to shift their position.

[@BenTevikMusic]

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer thanks for the response. I’m not taking issue with you calling out the phony music experts and with you explaining the market pressures that are put on bands to produce albums in a certain way. Andy when you say “modern metal bands are on the whole fake” that’s completely disrespecting and discounting an entire genre and all of its fans. Of course the fans have a problem with that! Lol. I’m not some big metalhead but to hear that statement as a fan of some of these bands…what am I to do with a statement like that? Seriously, how should I feel about hearing that some of my favorite bands are “fake”? Just because a band over-edits and over-produces their albums, to me that’s not the equivalent of being fake. Imo, an album’s purpose (in prog metal, not in jazz or fusion) is to present written compositions as best as possible, and the live show is meant to recreate those tunes by the band playing their instruments live (which they are, even if augmented by backing tracks). I can’t see how fulfilling both of those objectives can be done by a “fake” band. I think both in your video and your response here you are making a couple of different claims. Yes of course, don’t target a musician as being a fraud, and understand why these guys are forced to pitch correct and quantize. But pitch correcting and quantizing does not justify calling a genre, band, or musician “fake.” Metal and prog metal bands seem to be pretty successful nowadays, so this way of recording seems to resonate with people, no? Again I think you just don’t like it lol but that’s going to be impossible to convince you of. ✌️

[@stuartraybould6433]

One band I have seen Pain of Salvation many times and I can assure you, they are at least one band who are not fake. Live they are just as amazing in not actually better than in the studio. Daniel Gildenlow has an amazing voice and both guitarists can really play. The best live band I've seen with the exception of King Crimson. Haken are also great live and are genuine musicians of skill.

[@BenTevikMusic]

@@stuartraybould6433 agreed! I’ve seen both Pain of Salvation and Haken live. Incredible musicianship shown by both bands 👍 PoS was missing a bass player so they definitely had a track playing to fill that void, but from what I could tell both bands were creating the rest of the sounds live with their instruments and voices.

[@F.O.H.]

There's so many things I have to say in response to this video but I just don't think it really matters. Just like the point you were going on about. So instead I will just get stoned. Cheers!

[@johnneycrossey9016]

Zero hour and communic just a few great bands

[@tomthorsett1433]

What did you do with Pain of Salvation members? I'd definitely be interested to hear that.

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

The album never came out, but there is a video of me recording drums for it kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqStkGuBereGia8

[@grimtraveller7923]

I don't agree that progressive rock was a British or even English art form. The most influential and commercially successful bands may have been English, but that's not the same thing. Progressive rock developed simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic and in Europe.

[@NickyByloo]

I like Haken, but could never get into Porcupine Tree or Symphony X.

[@peterdunlop7885]

Perfect, the enemy of good. Love Prog, love metal, love prog metal….. like you, I hate the quantising, etc, etc…soulless.

[@adnilrummut105]

jimi hendrix played real music. that simple it is. lend his *fillmore east concerts* an ear. listen to *in the west* ! this is rock, soul, funk and blues. this is prog in developing new sounds. this is recorded live in '68, '69 and '70 and sounds better than most of live recordings done after!!!

[@marcoghiotti7153]

Bit of a rant myself, apologies in advance. What truly annoys me is when a band is unable to deliver what they sell/promise through their product, especially if I did buy that product. It is up me, ie the final consumer, to decide if/when I enjoy more the perfect carbon copy or a different interpretation during a live performance. Some genres sell primarily through merchandise, like pop. Some others, like jazz, prog and metal, are directly judged by their live performances, because their audience is more likely to be made of musicians themselves. In prog music, if you want me to buy your music, you must show me the real deal during a gig. When you confirm that you can deliver 100%, then you are free to reinterpret. Not before. I couldn't care less about quantisation or overly produced albums. At that point, I switch straight to ambient/drum n bass/synth. Prog metal indeed does suffer from this obnoxious syndrome of perfectionism though. Which turns out to be their downfall when measured by their live performances. It is quite evident that their target audience is primarily teenagers and immature adults. I still do remember when Images & Words came out, I was in my late teens. I was staggered and impressed by their virtuosity. I craved for that bombastic egomaniacal excessive display of technical skills. After 2 decades, it is no longer the main driving force behind my decision to consume music. Dream Theater (and all their copycats) are still playing the same old story, rehearsals or practice routines over and over since the late 80s. I perfectly understand that listeners go in cycles. I do not blame the teenagers, I was one myself back then. I am not even blaming the band. They want to make money, and their old style still sells. I just look for something different. So I pass on them and move elsewhere. Personally it is not about hearing mistakes that would make any music more enjoyable. Think of classical musicians who have been repeating the same repertoire for the past 300 years or so. To utter OCD-level perfection. To me it is only about being a real musician. If you can play whichever lick or passage, fine and good on you. If you cannot, then don't pretend showing off something you cannot afford, and simply show me what you are capable of. That would be just enough. We enjoy Pink Floyd for their ideas, not their 64th notes in 17/16 time signature at 220 bpm. Precisely clicked on the dot. Mind you, there are times when this might be enjoyable and appropriate. Yet, more often than not it is unnecessary to inspire large audiences on a daily basis. Technique should be the mean to a goal. To some, it is instead only the goal. To conclude, I do agree with Andy's points and rant. Some of us, as listeners and consumers, are waiting for a new wave of prog metal. More creative, less robotic, immature, insecure and pedantic. We'll see who will take the cake in the near future.

[@Captain_Rhodes]

At the end of the day people should be allowed to make music however they want and use whatever tricks they like. Its their business and if people want to buy what they are selling then good luck to them! Personally I don't buy much new music any more because I find too much of it lifeless and boring. I don't want boring quantised drums and digitally processed guitars. But then I have 100 years of recorded music to listen to so ill just go there. Hopefully the general public will change and come around to hearing how boring it all is, but ill just have to wait.

[@johnthresher259]

Can todays digital "fakery" be compared with the days of tape where a studio engineer would spend hours splicing bits of tape together to get the best take of a song? George Martin was the greatest at that kind of thing. We don't slam the Beatles (they're beyond criticism really) for the end result of studios hours of honing a song to be the best that it could be. At least Ringo didn't play to a click track (as far as I know) which goes to show how great he was. Oh and anyone who wants to remaster those albums to iron out any tiny changes in tempo should be ritually disemboweled with a keytar!

[@lucasartscrafts6023]

Rant away! You are saying aloud(very eloquently) what everyone else is thinking.

[@francisanosissi1]

Aren't we starting to spin yr tyres on subjects?..

[@biscobisco1882]

28:40 - slams quantizing and perfectionism 30:30 - shows and defends the most quantized guitar solo in KZbin history

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

What makes you think that solo is quantised?

[@biscobisco1882]

@AndyEdwardsDrummer The uncannily robotic rhythmic precision of the attacks on the notes that his live playing doesn't sound anything like. Every note is perfectly, evenly spaced even in the fastest sections in a way that is not humanly possible, least of all by Roy, as his live playing clearly demonstrates. When he plays live (e.g. the Marrs Bar gig) there's the usual dragging and rushing that comes with crossing strings and trying to get fast passages under the fingers. There's no shame in dragging and rushing, but there's none of it in the clip we're talking about now - it's Guitar Pro level precision at higher picking speeds than he does live and it's a dead giveaway. You've been around music long enough to know quantising when you hear it.

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

@@biscobisco1882 That video is a worked out pattern that Roy has practiced for many hours then taken many takes until he has got it perfect and that is what you see. Live is a different beast. My playing is not quantised on record but sounds much tighter down to compression gating and various other mix strategies. If Roy was quantising this he would have to use flex time, and I'm not sure how you would do this. If you went through each note manually stretching tham onto the grid and flattened out the velocity it would not change the attack on each note. What people don't seem to realise is how advanced Roy's sound is. There is no distortion and it changes the dynamic.completely. My friend and I sat with Roy, utilising his custom pick and it surprising how quickly it changes the speed and the consistancy of the attack But I'm pretty sure you will ignore these points, as, after doing a bit of digging, it seems you go around dropping negative comments on any video of Roy. You seem very focused on making some sort of undermining statement. It proves there is more than just five saying this stuff and the points I made in this video are correct. Why do you feel the need to do this? Why not call out all the guitarists whose guitar solos are created in protools? There are a lot of them out there.

[@peterwoodhouse4314]

You touch on the "prog was niche/irrelevant" myth. This lie (peddled mainly by punk press) ignored the shedloads of albums Yes, ELP and so on sold in the 70s and stadiums they sold out. Rush, Dream Theater, Metallica, etc proved you could explore heavy virtuosity AND shift units/seats. By the way, I love prog/punk like Magazine and the avant garde USA punk of Husker Du's Zen Arcade & Minutemen's Double Nickels...

[@sicko_the_ew]

Maybe there's some room in the world for One Take Studio - which does what it says. Just emphasize not even the positives in favour of this approach, but just the fact that _there's some space for this_ . (And maybe space for the quantizers, too. And for the wussies who do things in four takes with splicing.) Edit: Just in case this isn't clear from the above, the idea would be that the "product" you sign up for from this entity is music that hasn't been fiddle with. You accept that it has its faults as well as its merits, and sometimes you listen to this, while at other times you listen to that, and then again to t'other and so on.

[@RogueReplicant]

No Triumph or Kansas? 😔

[@stevesmith3990]

Loved Diamond Head back in the day, saw them twice at Hammersmith, good to see Opeth get a mention too. Agree with you about Haken, Tesseract et al, the music doesn't sound real, it has this strange processed texture. Re your rant, arn't the critics who say that musicians are faking it just saying the same thing as you? Musicians shouldn't let their playing and sound be edited and compressed to death, they should refuse like you did and music would sound real again.

[@jimmycampbell78]

No because some of these critics are saying its because the musicians are hiding lack of ability or pretending to be better than they are, thats their angle that Andy disagrees with.

[@gizka6816]

epic rant

[@AndyGrazianoNYC]

When I see a guy like Eddie trunk go on rants about bands who play with tracks, I get upset because he should know better

[@Truthinshredding1]

You have a choice, rearrange for live performance, or add more musicians (too expensive) use triggers, or add the computer.

[@neokio.f]

Hahaha who dare talking to the guitar experts 😂 as if their fingers arn't faster than others

[@Opuskrokus]

"sociophobic stay-in" hahahahaha

[@matereo]

There are no fake guitar players :D

[@Carlos-fh8wk]

Death’s (Chuck) music was so much more progressive than Metallica. They also did progressive metal way before Metallica.

[@Bass599]

If only polyphia released their own version of shut up 'n play yer guitar 😂

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

But then they would have to improvise

[@peterpeper4837]

What seems to be the problem here?

[@roywilkinson2078]

The internet has allowed people to broadcast their opinions 😉

[@aquabot]

As far as I'm concerned, Black Sabbath or War pigs are Progressive tunes.

[@ColdGrayMorning]

Rush is Heavy Prog - not metal

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

Do not play on a backing track. It imposes a strict frame on a performance that removes all individuality from the occasion. Classical orchestras who play tediously rehearsed, strictly defined parts with a conductor still sound individual on a day to day basis because the pulse is variable and there are no two identical performances. If you want to entertain butt shakers or idolising fools, you can just be there in flashy outfits but a "progressive rock" band ought to trust its audience to want to listen and hear something else than they already have at home. Don't just play the bloody record.

[@aleksandarfrick2656]

yes , i'm sick of "perfection " ...this is not classic music .

[@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music]

You know this guy knows this field because he TAKES IT TO 11.

[@spellman007]

Very funny to wine about “digital technology” and put images and words on this at the same time. Not a single real drum on that album!

[@AndyEdwardsDrummer]

Exactly...all the albums I mentioned on here from after that time have had a ton of fakery done on them. I live with it. Beleive me, I know what is going on....

[@spellman007]

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I believe in myself.

[@tomthorsett1433]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathcore

[@spellman007]

Lol right!